The Navy SEAL training course is rife with overzealous and unchecked instructors, spotty medical care and students who were so determined to pass that they would either lie to doctors or turn to doping, according to a newly released and highly critical Navy report.
The report, commissioned in the wake of the death of Seaman Kyle Mullen, an aspiring SEAL who died in 2022 just after completing the course’s notorious “Hell Week,” details a “near perfect storm” of issues that included a “degree of complacency and insufficient attentiveness to a wide range of important inputs meant to keep the students safe.”
The Navy ordered the investigation into how the training course, known as the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL course, or BUD/s, came in the wake of comments by Mullen’s mother and New York Times reporting that exposed some of the problems detailed in the report.
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A spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Command told Military.com that the investigation is being reviewed, “however, it is too early to comment on any potential accountability actions at this time.”
The report itself points to the need for some Navy accountability for the problems in SEAL training, and it notes that Naval Special Warfare Command intended to take action, though that section of the document is redacted.
A statement from the Navy released alongside the report said…
